Windows/Prize Scams

akhxox

Hello,
I started a thread a few weeks back about my grandmother receiving a phone call from 'AIB', stating that a large sum of money had been withdrawn from her bank a/c. This call turned out to be a scam.
Since them, she has been receiving numerous phone calls from 'Windows' stating that they had discovered a virus on a computer in the household. My grandmother nor anyone living in the house does not own a computer. Strangely, she has only been receiving these calls on a Thursday or Friday morning at around 11:00am. Ever since the first incident about AIB, she has been receiving calls every week! She received one about 10 minutes ago from Windows. Someone by the name Sharon called and she was calling from Windows in Dublin, Ireland. Every caller seemed to have a Chinese or Indian accent.
Aswell as these incidents, she got a call from someone and they told her that she had won a holiday! I just want to know does anyone else get these calls?
Thanks.

coylemj

Yes, thousands of those phone calls are made every day, the aim is to take over your computer (if you have one!), nobble it and then extract money from the victim to fix the 'problem'.

There is a number of measures you can take to help your grandmother. First, get her a phone with caller display and tell her not to answer any incoming call with a hidden (blocked) number. Note that this means that all of her family and friends will need to make sure that their home and mobile phones are enabled to send the calling number. If any of her friends have unlisted home phones, they can call her with a prefix of '142' (before any area code or her number) and their number will be sent on a one-off basis so she will see who is calling.

Second, if a call come in with an international or a local but unknown number, you can frustrate the caller's system by answering the call and saying nothing. If the call is from a scammer operation, they typically do not route the call to one of their agents until someone says 'hello' or there is some class of a human response. The reason is that otherwise their agents would spend 99% of their time listening to unanswered ringing tones so if you answer the call but say nothing and nobody on the other end says anything, hang up as you can be sure you've been called at random by a machine which means it's either a scam or a nuisance marketing call.

TopTec

Unfortunately, the fact that someone answers the phone and speaks makes them more likely to receive scam calls in the future. Your mothers number may have been highlighted and then sold on in a list of prime target numbers for scammers and beggars and even, unbelievably, charities.

An elderly friend of mine in the UK fell victim like your mother and unfortunately she was so confused she provided her address and bank details to one well known international charity. The next several months was a nightmare of telephone calls and 'personal' begging letters from several charities and then the more serious scams.

We had to get a court order issued against one particular charity to stop their contact with her, both doorstep and telephone, but there were still 10 or 15 others that carried on. Eventually, after 8 months or so, we got her number changed and went ex-directory, removed her address from the electoral roll and vigorously pursued any charity that was based in the E.U through legal means.

That was a couple of years ago and now it is rare for her to get calls.

If calls continue then I would suggest an early intervention to have her number changed.

TT